Counting the Days
by Starrystarrysky
Summary: Nothing could be more miserable than being away from the one you love. Yunoki-centric. YunokixHino. OOCness may occur.
1. Chapter 1

Being a foreigner in a country very much your own is difficult.

I have been, after all, only in touch with the reality there a number of times. Yes, I was educated to know it, and yes, I have its history, its beauty, its art at mind.

And yet, I cannot seem to grasp how real it is.

I don't know how real it is.

And so, leaving for a country that I only know from brochures stirs no such fear from me.

I'll treat it as a form of entertainment—no matter how much 'business' may try to eat me up.

I shall think of going away as a pastime—the way I think of you as one, as mine.

Still, something gnaws at me—something akin to fear or apprehension.

It's funny how I've started knowing these emotions. I have, after all, shut myself from feeling anything.

But you—you whose eyes are always so bright, you who I've always thought were only a hindrance, a sick joke the academy wanted to play on us music students—you managed to break through me.

That isn't what I fear, though (although I used to).

What I fear is that I'll find you foreign when I return—that I shan't know you, not have any inkling of what you are.

I haven't completely figured you out yet, after all.

Then again, I might like you much more (yes I do like you).

Because you'll once again give me something new, break the monotonous line I have for a life.

And once again, you'll find me annoyed at how different you are.

Because you see, I wasn't annoyed at the fact that you wormed your way in.

I was annoyed at you because you were different—that you _could _be different.

And I'll find myself falling deeper in like with you.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **La Corda isn't mine, but there's nothing wrong with daydreaming.

**Author's notes: **If there's anything I like writing, it's a romantic Azuma. XD


	2. Chapter 2

Another day, another misery.

This city is so different, and yet so predictable.

Here and there, people keep on streaming through the streets, like some massive ink leak. Day and night it's like this—the same people littering the same streets, the same faces passing me by in hallways.

Maybe they are different—it's probably just become painstakingly hard to tell.

Being cooped up is very hard after all.

Isn't it ironic that I travelled all the way to England just to experience what I experience there?

Same difference.

I move here as I move there—with the preciseness of clockwork, with the infallibility of a prince.

All these, I am sure, are designed to make me forget about you.

And yet, I do wonder.

Do your eyes light up the way they did when I was beside you?

Are your eyes still golden, like the achingly beautiful sunrise?

A huge part of me is slowly being wrenched out—that part of me that I had kept caged ever since my grandmother stopped me from playing the piano.

You had freed that part of me, you know.

But now…

…you'll have to put up with my meanness for a little while longer.


	3. Chapter 3

I've always been an honest person—at least up to most people's standards on honesty. That isn't very high, mind you. Most people, after all, do the most crooked things to be able to get what they want.

Don't mind my crooked views too much. Growing up as I am, I was presented with no other views of the world.

You know, I can almost picture you, puffing your cheeks indignantly, turning your head away, and muttering how despicably twisted I am.

I can see myself only chuckling at how idiotic you'd seem. And that would only enrage you more.

I'll let you in on something you must already know. You're the only person I've been truly honest with. Not even my younger sister knows me the way you do.

The day I decided to show myself to you would be the day I let myself out of my cage—and it was probably rusting anyway.

(I'd like to thank the supernatural being who was kind enough to let me meet you.)

But then I began to hope.

I started asking myself—would there be any hope for me? Would I still be able to live the way you do—free and hopeful?

I start to wonder.

Would there be any hope for the two of us?


	4. Chapter 4

It's been four days-four days of waking up, sleeping, and realizing.

Whenever I'd wake up to the first rays of the sun, I'd wish it were your eyes I'm looking into and not the walls of this room.

Whenever I'd lay myself to sleep, I'd wish it were your hand that I'm holding instead of this glass of wine.

And in between opening and closing my eyes, I'd realize what I'd been missing when I left Japan. I'd been missing you, and that miniscule semblance of happiness in my life.

All these come in increasing palpability every hour, every minute, every second-every moment I realize I'm miles away from you. So much so, I can taste the bitterness of this empty room. So much so, I can feel this loneliness working its way down my throat, almost choking me. And just when I thought I'd bravely swallowed, it crawls back up with renewed fervour.

Loneliness becomes my companion instead of you.

I'm uncertain whether this is love. What I do know is that I want to be beside you.

I don't know what you see or what you think of when you look at me. But I do know that when I look at you, I see what I can be, and I think of what _we_ can be.

All this is new to me. I am a foreigner in a foreign land with foreign feelings threatening to consume me.

But I hope, when I come back, you'd be the same, and I'd be no stranger to you.


	5. Chapter 5

Remember that fateful day I coerced you to be my girlfriend?

When we talked about it on the rooftop, I was actually a bit nervous. Yes, I know that it would have just been a ploy, but it was the very first time I asked a girl if she could be my girlfriend.

The other 'girlfriends' I had were credited to my grandmother's 'wooing.'

I was raving on about helping one's neighbour, but the fact was my mind was screaming at me of the things that would happen in case you turned my offer down. And I started asking myself many things.

Would I have been the same man? Would I have shut you off?

You would turn me down right?

And then what would I have done?

And the thing was you accepted it.

I was almost over the moon (secretly of course).

But then on that same day, you ended up turning me down when you talked to Ayano.

I felt as though cold water had been splashed down onto my head. It was around that time that I had unconsciously decided that I had to make you mine, and be damned the rest of them—my grandmother included.

At the start I told you that it would have been more believable for other people that I chose you if you had been more beautiful, more intelligent.

And you retorted that you were sorry that you were ordinary. You weren't born to please me, after all.

My mind was actually screaming at me (again) how moronic that statement was.

You know why?

Because to me, you never were ordinary. Everything you did was an enigma to me.

And you still are.

So when I say that you're ordinary, you're not supposed to be scathed by it.

Because being your ordinary self is more than enough for me.


	6. Chapter 6

It may not seem like it to you, and most certainly not to everybody else, but my thoughts have always been occupied by you.

I know I've only been repeating myself all this time, but how else would your pretty, little head absorb this?

It's quite dense, after all.

Me thinking about you—it's the truth, though. I am being truthful here, after all.

And this has been heartbreakingly true ever since I've arrived here (though I guess you already know that).

Heartbreaking.

Do you find it peculiar how I've started using my heart in dealing with you? If you do find it odd, well then I'd have a hard time explaining it to you clearly. But if you don't, then that just saves me a lot of trouble…and heartache.

With you, it seems as though there would never be a logical explanation as to my apparent attraction, my feelings towards you.

Just like there wasn't any good reason for me to dislike or loathe you.

It's amazing though, how a simpleton like you could unlock my heart oh-so-slowly when I've convinced myself that I've drowned it in the nearest ocean.

So I'll use it more, and then I'll see what I can find about you, what I'll be able to understand about you.

Know that when I stare at you, it isn't merely to fluster you or make you uncomfortable—though most of the time that's what I find myself doing.

Know that when I look at you, it's because I'm seeing _you_, and everything that would comprise you.

Know that when I look at you, I'm trying to feel you.

Feel you in a way that I will never forget.

* * *

Hello, everyone!

I'm truly sorry for not being able to update as regularly as I used to. And I thank you for reading my stories. It means a lot to me that you continue to read despite my lethargy as an author.

More to come soon! :D


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